Skip to main content

#1 of 26: The Girl Who Stopped Swimming

By
Almost everyone tries to outrun their past or at least part of their past. IN Joshilyn Jackson's The Girl Who Stopped Swimming the main character Laurel has a very unusual past that will not stay dead - literally. She sees ghosts. Specifically of her Uncle Marty who was accidentally killed on a hunting trip with her father, herself and her younger sister Thalia. The book starts with Laurel waking in the middle of the night to see the ghost of her daughter's friend Molly in her bedroom. Molly leads Laurel to her window and Laurel sees a body sunken to the bottom of the pool. Somehow Molly was in their backyard in the middle of the night and because of that Laurel now has to dredge up the past and her family in order to figure out what happened to the girl who stopped swimming.

Usually I will know within the first 5-10 pages if I like a book and if it is worth it to keep reading. With this book the first chapter was all about Laurel seeing Molly's ghost so it caught my attention from the first page. There was a lot of description of people, places and Laurel's past (especially about her Uncle Marty who was the very first ghost she ever saw) that at the time I was reading I thought to be not needed, too much information. However, when I got to the end I realized all of the descriptions and blasts to Laurel's past were needed. The reader needed to understand that this story was not just about the untimely death of a young girl but also a story about finding the truth about yourself and your past through your past because no matter how far or fast you run, your past will always find you.

Jackson does a very nice job of blending the past with the present and not dwelling too much on either one. Many of her fans have said this is one of her weakest works but since I don't have anything to compare it to it was very good in my eyes. It wasn't a blow your mind type book like Pride and Prejudice (say what you will I love Jane Austen) but it was worth my time and it gets the #1 spot in my list of 26 books to read in 2011 and I am very happy with that decision.

My rating for this book will be 3.5 out of 5. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a little mystery, a little family drama, and a little self discovery packed into 300 pages. Enjoy!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What feeds your soul?

By
What feeds your soul? This is a very large question filled with incredible, easy to discover answers but sometimes the hardest to put into practice. As a new mom (daughter, 14 months) I have had a hard time feeding my soul without feeling guilty. Every time I do something for myself that feeds my soul (reading, writing, watching my favorite TV show or movie) I feel guilty that I am not spending that time with my daughter. Even if my daughter is asleep or playing by herself which my wife and I want her to be able to do I still feel guilty that I am taking the time for myself instead of her.  The joys of motherhood! dTaking a step back for a moment, what does feeding your soul mean? In the simplest sense it means doing something that you love and/or are passionate about. No one can find out what you love other than you but some things could include reading, meditating, yoga, soaking in the bath, writing, anything. The choice is up to you. But the thing you have to learn is feed...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Forgotten Book

By
When you have a list of over 400 books on your to-read list, you tend to forget that you put some of them on the list. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is one of those books. I used the randomizer on my Goodreads list to give me my next book after Landline. It gave me Station Eleven. I tried racking my brain, willing myself to recall when I put this on my list and my mind couldn’t come up anything. I guess that is what happens with over 400 books on your list. Station Eleven is about the post-collapse United States and Canada and the characters that have lived through it (and some that haven’t).  A flu broke out in Toronto that had an incubation period of less than 24 hours once exposed.  Only 1 in 3000 survived the outbreak.  Everything is gone - electricity, internet, gas, everything that we take for granted all gone in a couple of years.  The story moves back and forth between pre-collapse and post-collapse as well as between 3 main character lives. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Once Upon A Time

By
Out of all of the new shows I had decided to watch this year, it comes as so surprise that the one show I have kept up with the most is the show from the same producers as Lost – Once Upon A Time.    The show is about a boy, Henry, who believes that his town – Storybrooke, Maine – is really the Enchanted Forest and everyone has forgotten who they are. He came to that idea from a book he was given by his teacher, Mary Margaret who Henry believes is really Snow White.   He believes his adoptive mother, Regina, is really the Evil Queen, his therapist is Jiminy Cricket, the John Doe in the hospital is Prince Charming, and the one who can save everything is Emma, his birth mother who gave him up for adoption 10 years ago. And did I mention that Henry believes Emma to be the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming?   Henry also believes that the Evil Queen cast a curse on the whole Enchanted Forest which is why they can’t remember who they are. Still with me? Good. Let’...
Post a Comment
Read more